Jackson Pollock: Decoding the Art of the ‘Action Painter’

an energetic man is striding around a large canvas laid on the floor a half-burnt cigarette filter stuck to his lips he wears jeans and a white t-shirt despite the freezing cold in his studio a large space with neither heating or electricity the man drips flings splashes dollops of paint as if enraptured in a dance taking cues from a melody which only he can hear the painting that is taking shape is an abstract pattern it looks both vaguely patterned and totally random is this an expression of chaos the painter might reply no chaos damn it that painter was jackson pollock a polarizing artist if there ever was one his paintings can mesmerize art lovers they can also incite observers to shout my toddler could do it better in today's biographics we will decode his troubled life and hemetic art a cocktail which features jungian psychoanalysis fractals and cia involvement [Music] paul jackson pollock was born on january 28 1912 in cody wyoming the town took its name from its founder colonel william cody better known as buffalo bill pollock's birthplace would contribute to his mythologized status as a cowboy painter which was indeed a myth but it was one pollock never felt the need to correct his parents were stella may mcclure and leroy pollock or rather leroy mccoy but young leroy had lost both his parents in the span of a few months and had been raised by his neighbors the pollocks jackson was the youngest of five boys all of whom stella hoped would become artists of some kind in her eyes they were all potential geniuses which suggests the image of a loving mother proud of her children but the family atmosphere may not have been that rosy a later letter written by one of the pollock boys to his brother discusses jackson's emotional instability and psychological problems in his eyes these date back to his childhood to his relations with his family and our mother a source of emotional instability may have been tied to a constant sense of displacement when jackson was 10 months old the family relocated near san diego and eight months late to phoenix leroy was moving around the states looking for better job opportunities or buying and selling land in 1917 when jackson was five leroy dragged a family back to california this time to chico all in all during the first 10 years of his life jackson pollock lived in six different houses across three different states in 1921 the oldest of the pollock boys charles moved to los angeles to work at the los angeles times and to study at the otis art institute from la he would send back home copies of art and literary magazines which had a great influence on his younger brothers the magazines also included reproductions of contemporary european art especially of the paris school and especially of pablo picasso this is how jackson's lifelong obsession with the spanish artist may have begun in 1923 the pollux moved back to phoenix this was another key milestone in jackson's formative years in arizona he visited native american reservations and learned about their culture their traditions and of course their art in his adult years he admitted that his gestural or action painting technique owed a debt of gratitude to native american people such as the navajo and the mojave their works included abstract designs painted on a flat area laying on the ground the artists used paint shore but also sand and other raw materials jackson did not have much time to learn from these techniques as leroy relocated again to california in 1924. three years later the young pollock was a freshman at the riverside high school near los angeles and it was not a nice experience he didn't fit in neither with the classes nor with his classmates his father wrote to the school concerned about the boy's difficulties with social communication well he did find a way to communicate but it wasn't very social jackson engaged in violent behavior and was eventually expelled for fighting in march of 1928. jackson moved to downtown l.a and enrolled in the manual arts high school garnering two further expulsions and a reputation as a rebel with well some cause this time it wasn't for fighting but for participating in student protests inspired by his father's socialist ideals jackson took every opportunity to march and protest traditional authority it was a pity the school had him kicked out as he thoroughly enjoyed classes in drawing and sculpture he was forming an identity of his future self as an artist in one letter to his brothers jackson wrote as to what i would like to be it is difficult to say an artist of some kind while he figured out what kind exactly jackson and his brother sanford worked for leroy employed as a topographical surveyor from 1927 to 1930. during those years the teenage pollock followed leroy and his crew in surveys of the grand canyon enjoying the vast landscapes of the west unfortunately he also enjoyed something else working with rugged older men exposed him to alcohol at a very young age it became a habit then a lifelong addiction in later life as a successful artist he was known for becoming aggressive after a few glasses and kicking off arguments at parties which sometimes generated into brawls at the end of the grand canyon years jackson wrote to big brother charles that the so-called happy years of youth had been to him a bit of a damnable hell charles was definitely a big influence on jackson and a trailblazer that led him into the world of art in 1926 charles had moved to new york to make it as a painter when jackson joined him in 1930 the older brother introduced him to one of his teachers notable artist thomas hart benton in 1930 jackson moved in with charles and also became a student of the bentons this is the period in which pollock's formal training really took off when his disparate influences coalesced and when his style became more distinctive benton introduced him to italian masters of the renaissance to mexican muralists like sikaros and riviera and to the movement that he championed american regionalism pollock's work in the mid-1930s reflects benton's influence take the painting cotton pickers for example the style is still clearly figurative the subject matter deals with social injustice in a rural setting both elements are typical of the regionalist style and both are elements which formed an important stepping stone in pollock's career although he would eventually break away from recognizable figures and from explicitly political themes in the late 1930s and early 1940s jackson pollock was exposed to another source of profound inspiration in attempts to fight his alcoholism anger issues and bouts of depression police underwent psychotherapy sessions first with dr joseph henderson from 1938 to 1941 and then with dr violet star de lazio in 1941 and 1942. his therapists introduced jackson to the methods of carl gustav jung and especially the concept of jungian unconscious according to jung the human psyche includes three main interacting systems the ego the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious the ego represents the conscious mind and it comprises the thoughts memories and emotions we are aware of the personal unconscious contains forgotten information and personal repressed memories the collective unconscious is instead shared by members of the human species and is made up of latent memories from our ancestral and evolutionary past when pollock found it difficult to communicate his feelings to dr henderson he brought along some of his sketches a set of 83 drawings dating from this period is known as the psychoanalytic drawings they capture a transitional period in pollock's career he is leaving behind his early figurative work and shifting toward what would become his signature style abstract expressionism the drawings display the clear influence of jung's theory as pollock uses symbols belonging to the collective unconscious symbols like the snake according to jung this is a stand-in for sex or for the baser lower parts of human nature in fact snakes often appear at the bottom of pollock's work at the top one may find suns moons and eyes symbols of higher psychic states the sun disk and moon crescent are two of pollock's favorites the sun symbolizes the male unconscious element of the psyche while the moon represents femininity in the unconscious pollock liked to combine the symbols into a larger shape according to professor michael layer of pennsylvania university this may indicate an attempt at reconciliating the artist's conscious and unconscious states pollock's work started to show another sign of the effects of the unconscious in the early 1940s this is the period in which pollock started to incorporate paint dripping on a horizontal canvas as a preferred technique the act of dripping paint by using brushes sticks or even turkey basters had been influenced by native american artists as we have seen but also by the mexican painter saquiaris according to michael freed there is a further collective force at work and that is the unconscious mind influenced by jungian studies pollock may have given free reign to his unconscious the apparently random lines created by paint dripping of the embodiment of pure energy generated by repressed memories a piece of art which perfectly exemplifies jungian unconscious at play is guardians of the secret from 1943. the canvas features a painting within a painting a rectangular shape filled with abstract markings is flanked by two figures stylized renditions of a man and a woman the central rectangle may be a representation of the unconscious with its chaotic expression kept in check by the two human figures these figures may symbolize the animus and the anima jung described these as the mirror images of our biological sex for example men would have an anima their unconscious feminine side jung wants to find the animus and anime as guardians of the threshold a definition which pollock borrowed for the painting's title guardians was the most striking piece in pollock's first solo exhibition and it got him noticed [Music] in particular pollock caught the eye of wealthy art collector and patron peggy guggenheim peggy went to visit jackson at the flat he shed in new york with his girlfriend lee krasner lee was also a painter who would go on to have a long and influential career after climbing four long flights of stairs the exhausted peggy found nobody home just when she was about to leave the building she bumped into a drunken jackson back from a friend's wedding party lee and jackson showed peggy their respective works the patron was mildly interested in pollock's and totally dismissive of krasner's there may have been some jealousy at work there guggenheim may have developed an infatuation with pollock and always resented lee's presence in his life peggy walked away irritated by pollock's behavior but impressed by his looks and charisma ultimately it was her advisor painter marcel de champ who convinced her to give jackson a chance and so it was that in july of 1943 pollock received a commission to create a mural for peggy's new townhouse he was free to choose the subject but not the size the work needed to cover an entire wall 81 feet long and almost 20 feet high pollock chose to paint with oil on canvas rather than directly on the wall even so the size of the frame was huge his studio was divided into two rooms none of which was large enough pollock ended up tearing down the petition wall the deadline was november 6 a date in which guggenheim had offered to stage an exhibition of pollock's art jackson immediately sent to work except he didn't the artist was going through a rough patch slipping back into depression pollock experienced an artistic block and spent weeks staring at the empty canvas he missed the november deadline but shortly afterward he had a vision a stampede of every animal in the american west cows and horses and antelopes and buffalos everything is charging across that goddamn surface driven by this rapture pollock painted his mural in a single burst of energy around new year's day of the stampede had morphed into a kinetic tsunami of abstract shapes mural was recognized as a turning point for american art and to help put jackson on the artistic map of new york he could count on the guggenheim patronage of course but most importantly he was championed by influential art critic clement greenberg i took one look at it and i thought now that's great art and i knew jackson was the painter this country had produced [Music] in october 1945 jackson and lee tied the knot and in november they moved into their new house 830 springs fireplace road in springs long island new york jackson converted a nearby barn into a large studio large enough to lay enormous canvases on the floor free from the constraints of the traditional easel the painter was able to perfect the technique for which he became famous the technique has become known as drip painting or action painting or gestural painting by defying the convention of painting on an upright surface police added a new dimension to his creative process he was now able to view and apply paint to his canvases from all directions and not just any artist's paint pollock preferred household paints varnishes and enamels to drip and fling these materials pollock used hardened brushes sticks and even basting syringes in the process of perfecting the style pollock moved away from figurative representation even avoiding vague shadows of recognizable shapes his work lucifer of 1947 is a good example of this transition pollock had started this painting by applying color to the canvas in a traditional way but halfway through the process he went into full action mode he dripped spattered pigments on an under layer into which he had embedded small pieces of gravel to increase the texture while completing lucifer pollock devised another original technique every time he had to dip his brush into varnish the interruption to his free hand movements frustrated him he then tried to tilt a can of household pains allowing it to run down a stick at the right angle lucifer and other similar works of the period debuted at the betty parsons gallery in new york in 1948. you would think that with greenberg behind him the exhibition would be a success but no it was a critical disaster the wider general public in the u.s are simply not yet ready for pollock's action paintings europe was a different story though peggy guggenheim constantly moving between new york and venice took the occasion to show six of pollock's works at the prestigious venice banale the paintings were greatly appreciated by italian and european critics and so the tour continued into milan and florence it's worth mentioning that just a couple of years earlier the u.s state department had sponsored a touring exhibition of other american abstract expressionists the same school to which pollock belonged the exhibition was called advancing american art it had the explicit intention of showcasing american abstract artists in europe and beyond the iron curtain the message was clear the u.s was the home of the free open to all forms of artistic expression as opposed to the drab state-controlled realist art coming from communist bloc countries now keep that in mind shortly after pollock's european exhibitions jackson made it to the mainstream on august 8 1949 readers of life magazine got to know the painter he appeared as a brooding puzzled looking man on a two-page spread standing in front of one of his large murals the title of the article read is he the greatest living painter in the united states [Music] [Applause] in 1949 and the early 1950s pollock was on a roll this is when he produced number one and autumn rhythm arguably the two examples in which abstract expressionism and action painting are at their highest power these large canvases lack a central point of focus there is no hierarchy no dominance of one element over the other every bit of the surface is equally important pollock's own european tour had no further motive than to advance his own art and apparently it worked his paintings had to establish credibility in europe before being appreciated at home despite the wave of success and appreciation critics were still divided if life had pollock's back time magazine dismissed his art as chaos hence his famous reply via telegram no chaos damn it pollock firmly stated that he had a clear idea of how he wanted a particular piece to appear more precisely he affirmed complete control over the movements of his implements his hands his body random forces did come into play when the paint fell over the canvas and pollock accepted that the viscosity of the material the absorption factor of the canvas even the force of gravity those were the uncontrollable elements wrestling with the controllable ones creating a synthesis a new meaning perhaps in pollock's mind it was similar to how the human psyche and human behavior are a result of conscious and unconscious factors finally pollock regained control as the abstract images took shape on the canvas it was he who decided what colors or lines to add and he would not stop until he saw what he wanted to see contemporary myths depict jackson pollock as a bewitched artist high on alcohol who randomly flung paint while ecstatically dancing to the improvisational jazz of masters like charlie parker his wife lee krasner later denied this not only did his studio lack the electricity needed to plug in a record player but pollock didn't really dig those cats blurting out bebop and cool jazz he preferred old-fashioned big band classics of the dixieland era this myth was further dispelled by the analysis of art critic robert goodnaught and pepe carmel they studied a documentary of pollock at work shot by filmmaker hans namuth and were able to describe jackson's working method in four phases phase one start your masterpiece by tracing some loosely representational figures phase two immediately overpaint and obscure these figures these two phases should take about two hours and leave you utterly exhausted phase three take a can of black or dark enamel dip a stubby brush and move your arm rhythmically the paint will drip fall and splash in a variety of movements onto the surface within half an hour the entire surface will be covered in weaving rhythms and patterns phase four over the following two weeks you will get accustomed to the painting returning to it to apply additional layers of color in a slower and more deliberate fashion good naught and carmel gave a good description of the process when it came to interpreting the result we just have to quote the much later studies published on nature by richard taylor adam michelik and david jonas the researchers analyzed autumn rhythm among other works and realized that pollock's paintings presented fractal patterns fractals are never ending infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar whether you view them from up close or from very far away the trio of authors found such geometric regularity in the apparently irregular services of pollock's masterpieces but what was the meaning behind this the three main interpretations are that pollock wanted to replicate fractals observed in nature such as trees or coastlines or that he wanted to represent a mathematical model of a fractal or that the fractals observed on the canvas were simply an unintentional representation of pollock's movements in other words the painting was merely an object a trace left behind by the event of the artist working in his studio and that the event is what counted regardless of interpretations descriptions and explanations jackson was huge by the 1950s he was seen as the leader of the new vanguard of abstract expressionists peggy guggenheim and greenberg had played their part sure but pollock and his mates could count on one more powerful ally the us government and the c.i.a remember the exhibits and tour organized by the state department in 1947 well it had backfired it emerged that many abstract expressionists including pollock were socialists or communists this prompted the political establishment to condemn their art senator george dondero declared all modern art is communistic harold harvey a los angeles councilman gave us this pearl modern art is actually a means of espionage if you know how to read them modern paintings will disclose weak spots in u.s fortifications and such crucial constructions as the boulder dam paintings are secret missives to the ussr about american weak points well there's probably a movie there somewhere or at least a good conspiracy theory circles within the state department and cia though still felt that sponsoring american modern art would be a good plan the end game was to display soviet realist art from getting any traction in europe but they could not do it openly conveniently the president of the museum of modern art in new york was nelson rockefeller whose connections with the cia and the diplomatic service were deep rooted so in 1952 the cia gave moma a five-year grant via the rockefeller brothers fund in order to fund the international program the museum was able to organize 33 international exhibitions of abstract expressionist art across four years with cia money european galleries were flooded with works by pollock mark rothko willem de kooning and similar artists in the same year pollock produced convergence a collage of colors that created masterful shapes and lines evoking violent emotions a real assault on the eye surely not very accessible and yet it became his best-known work thanks to the promotion granted by the international program and to the fact that years later it was turned into a best-selling jigsaw puzzle but as often happens with successful but troubled artists the pressures of notoriety contributed to pollock's personal deterioration his bouts of depression worsened his alcoholism deepened his behavior became more erratic an anecdote of the time tells us how he once walked into an after-show party stark naked and urinated into a fireplace in 1955 pollock painted scent and search which would be his last two officially recognized paintings according to friend jeffrey potter the following year became an abyss of non-productivity spent by jackson in a death trance on a personal level his marriage with lee had deteriorated as well marking twin calamities during a night spent drinking at his favorite bar the cedar jackson met a 26 year old model in gallaras the beautiful ruth clingman according to ruth the meeting had been coincidental according to artist audrey flack she had precise plans to seduce the top artist of the new york scene in any case the two began a torrid affair their relationship was only physical at first but soon after they fell in love lee was understandably distraught and decided to move out of their home in springs boarding a cruise ship to europe ruth moved in the very same day during the early months of their love affair kingman was frustrated by pollock's lack of interest in art then one day in july she insisted he painted a new piece for her pollock relented and set to work the result according to ruth was the piece red black and silver although the attribution is disputed by most art critics had jackson pollock found new inspiration a new muse in ruth would he have crawled out of his trance ready to revolutionize the art world yet again well we'll never know on august 11 1956 at 10 15 pm jackson ruth and their friend edith metzger were driving in pollock's oldsmobile convertible jackson was at the wheel driving under the influence of alcohol less than a mile away from his spring's home the oldsmobile veered off the road and crashed ruth was the only survivor the relationship between lee and jackson at the end may have been stormy for sure but after pollock's death krasner kept his memory and legacy alive she ensured that his short-lived fame did not peter out snuffed by the new american trends such as pop art and hyperrealism definitely more figurative in style pollock's art was divided in its genesis it came from a struggle between conscious and unconscious it derived from controllable and uncontrollable elements it was driven by anti-conformism but backed by the establishment and so his legacy was and still is divisive you may love him or you may despise him but surely you can't ignore him so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching you

Channel: Biographics

Views: 84,002

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: 6HVi5L46Zmk

Length: 23min 11sec (1391 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020